We've decided to move the forum from one software platform to another. There is no easy way of saving your user account, private messages, posts, etc from the old forum software. However, we intend to leave that forum up and running for posterity in some sort of read-only mode. Why did we make this *drastic* decision?

The SMF forum based SCDB was not the first or original forum software installed here at The Pages of Now and Forever. I could go back to the 1990s but, I won't go back that far. At one point, we had the Perl based Yabb software. Eventually, the old web server host of this forum decided to stop supporting CGI and Perl. At the time, we found the PHP based SMF forum software. SMF even had a *barely working* conversion script to get all the data from Yabb into the new SMF based SCDB.

Times were *turbulent* with our previous host. They neglected to upgrade the underlying software such as PHP and MySQL. Eventually, they decided to cease hosting fan supported gaming sites all together. It was time to move our *little* site onto a more stable and modern host and take control of our own *destiny*. At that time, we exported the SMF based databases and the SCDB continued onwards.

What you see before you it the result of many months of hard work by Lukipela, zenzmurfy, Eth and Scott. There was much debate. There was *strife*. The problems with the old SMF SCDB are well documented. We tried fixing them by begging in the free support forums of SMF. No one had a clue, they had never seen anything like it. We tried upgrading the software to the latest *beta* version. Nothing fixed the quirks, some offered paid support with no promise of a solution. Ultimately, we decided against a slave shield like fate. We wouldn't put our future trust behind a software platform we weren't happy with any longer. Software is *fickle* that way.

Enough long winded talk. We prepared something special for your consideration. The old SMF SCDB always needed a proper Star Control theme. *default* is boring. So when I say we, I really mean Lukipela did the hard work on the theme. zenzmurfy created the snazzy graphics. The theme would not have been done without them. I think everyone should raise a glass of pootworm juice to them! Stay tuned for more. We hope to have tweaks, additional graphics and eventually a dark theme for those that prefer it.

I can't thank Lukipela, Eth and Scott enough for their suggestions, testing and support. Especially the encouragement. Seriously, this has always been a fan driven forum and it wouldn't have gotten done without them.

So consider this a reboot. A restart. Whatever you want to call it. We hope you stay around. We think this new software will meet and exceed our future needs. Please register and get involved. By my *accounts*, the 20th anniversary of Star Control 2 is fast approaching. We'll be here, we hope you will be too!

If you've read this far, I *salute* you! In the next day or two, I hope to give away original, authentic, the real deal, Star Control 2 color paper Hyperspace maps via a contest only eligible to registered users. More details on that later.